Religion
In reply to the discussion: Whether Jesus existed historically [View all]On the Road
(20,783 posts)I agree "I am not lying" sounds like special pleading. The fact that Paul uses the same phrase in three different letters sounds to me like he was responding to a particular accusation that was circulating. Robert Eisenman thinks this is related to the Qumran document mentioning the Teacher of Righteousness, the Wicked Priest, and the "Lying Spouter, who denies the law in the midst of the whole congregation." Note: The Qumram documents are usually dated earlier, but there are good reasons to doubt the traditional dating (eg, Norman Golb, "Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?" .
This question is so weird IMO because it looks like Paul may have been mythologizing an actual person, but pretty much just appropriating the name and applying it to his own heavenly character. What persuades me that Jesus was historical is that James is universally discussed in the early material as a physical relative, and the desopnysi that Domitian interrogated were seen as physical relatives of Jesus. I realize it is possible that 'brother' is not used literally, but the scholars on Crosstalk2 insist that Paul would have used a word other than adelphos if that's what he meant, and few of them have a religious ax to grind.
This is what I am starting to think happened: Jesus depicted himself as the King of the Jews, either trying to incite a revolt or hoping for divine intervention. He did what revolutionaries at the time did -- stir up support in the countryside and then reveal himself when the whole country was at a fever pitch in Jerusalem. The Romans and ruling Jews had good reason to suspect him of sedition. His death was not planned.
The earliest belief about the resurrection was that it was a spiritual resurrection from the cross -- Jesus ascended spiritually into heaven, and nothing special happened to his body. Although we do not know the details, James was famous for his "ascents" into the heavens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascents_of_James). Putting the two together, it is inevitable that James would report that he saw his brother in heaven, perhaps sitting at God's right hand -- this is the original heavenly Jesus. Some of this material was shared orally with subgroups of messianic Jews who met in the synagogues around the Mediterranean.
Paul picked up on this heavenly Jesus and appropriated his popularity for his own purposes, not caring about the real Jesus' beliefs. While Peter and some others accepted him at first, his denial of circumcision and Jewish law caused James to eventually banish him from the synagogues.
In the second century, Marcion issued the first New Testament consisting of ten letters of Paul and a version of Luke. Marcion argued that Paul was a gnostic and was the only correct interpreter of Jesus' teaching. The most incindiary belief of gnosticism was the claim that the god of the Old Testament was not Jesus' father but a jealous local tribal god. That got people's attention.
Marcion was eventually excommunicated, and part of the backlash against him was a reemphasis on literal truth rather than the allegories and heavenly truths of gnosticism. During the mid-2nd C, Irenaeus added three more Gospels and some other letters. Material that did not fit doctrine was changed, and in some case new sayings or stories were introduced or altered to fit orthodoxy. (Eg, at Jesus' baptism, the Arian "today I have begotten you" became "with you I am well pleased", as Bart Ehrman argues). Which is a big reason for the mass confusion in this area.
Strangely enough, while I agree Paul was dishonest, his version of Christianity was the most positive and uplifting as opposed to the ascetic legalism of James or the severity of the orthodox fathers. Arguably, more of the highest religious ideals of Western civilization can be traced to Paul than to anyone else.